Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller seems to be doing OK for a 26-year-old who couldn't get into film school at USC.It isn't, after all, every guy in his mid-20s who can say he is co-producing, co-writing and starring in his own network prime-time television series -- and one that's named after him, no less.Who needs college? Mr. Stiller has "The Ben Stiller Show," a new Fox sketch comedy series airing Sunday nights.The critics have been split on the show. Roughly half of them raved about the its clever collection of whimsical short films and parody sketches.

The Soloist *** ( 3 STARS) Jamie Foxx steals the show as a former Juilliard student whose tenuous mental state relegates him to the mean streets that house L.A.'s homeless. Robert Downey Jr. is the L.A. Times columnist who first exploits, then grudgingly befriends, him. The movie suffers by trying to illuminate, perhaps, too many of society's ills. But hey, at least it tries. Opening next Friday Dance Flick: (Paramount Pictures) The creators of the Scary Movie franchise return to spoof song-and-dance movies like High School Musical.

As he showed in his short-lived comedy-sketch TV series, Ben Stiller has a gift for crafting show-biz lampoons that explode the boundaries between burlesque and satire, low and high culture, clowning and parody. One of the funniest things ever put on television was the skit he called "Woody Allen's Bride of Frankenstein," a take-off on Husbands and Wives with a cast of characters that included Frankenstein's monster and the Mummy. It slashed through Allen's psychodrama with a simple, brilliant stroke: Allen's characters often acted monstrously; in Stiller's parody, they were monsters.

Dodgeball 5:30 p.m. [FX] No, it's not coverage of some elementary school recess. It's the movie featuring Vince Vaughn in a typically Vaughnian role and Ben Stiller (left) in one of his "wacky" ones. The cast also features Curtis Armstrong, the beloved "Booger" from the Revenge of the Nerds movies.

By now Edward Norton should be immune to goose-bump experiences. But when the twice Oscar-nominated actor, currently on every important short list in Hollywood, talks about the premiere of "Keeping the Faith," he leaves the distinct impression that he's fresh from a pinch-me moment. For one thing, the premiere -- his directorial debut -- occurred at New York's fabled Ziegfeld Theatre, the kind of old-fashioned movie palace where klieg lights always seem to be shining, even for a plain old matinee.

Just when you thought Hollywood had forgotten how to make a comedy that didn't depend on the body's nether regions for humor, along comes the unlikely duo of Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro to blow that notion right out of the water. "Meet the Parents" is the funniest film in years, a wonderfully organic comedy that builds on De Niro's surprising second career as a comic actor (coming on the heels of 1999's "Analyze This"). It's also a film that should ring familiar to anyone who's ever endured the anxiety of meeting a prospective spouse's parents - and then spent days replaying every word and action, trying to figure how you made such a bad impression.

You know when Crunch Fitness, the hip national chain of 26 clubs, picks up on a trend, it's going to be the Next Big Thing. Inspired by Ben Stiller's hit movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Crunch has incorporated the schoolyard game into its fitness classes. Dodge ball 101 includes a warm-up, three to five rounds of the game, an abs workout and a final stretch. The clubs even hold dodge ball tournaments. It's a lot more fun than the treadmill when the weather forces you indoors. Locally, the Maryland Athletic Club in Timonium is a co-sponsor with WBAL of a charity dodge ball tournament in February.

Jermaine Hash insists he doesn't mind being alone inside a closed museum all night. Neither does Allen Cummings, but he allows that, "You do hear sounds in here." "Here" is the Inner Harbor's Maryland Science Center. It's well past midnight on a recent weekday evening, and the two men are describing what it's like to hold one of Baltimore's eeriest jobs: night watchman in an empty, cavernous museum. After all, the night watchmen at New York's Museum of Natural History have to watch over bounding dinosaurs, talking statues, living-history dioramas and restless mummies.

Dodgeball 5:30 p.m. [FX] No, it's not coverage of some elementary school recess. It's the movie featuring Vince Vaughn in a typically Vaughnian role and Ben Stiller (left) in one of his "wacky" ones. The cast also features Curtis Armstrong, the beloved "Booger" from the Revenge of the Nerds movies.

Love between the gentlest souls still requires a touch of testosterone. That's the tiny home truth expressed awkwardly and laboriously in School for Scoundrels. The uber-geek himself, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, stars as Roger, a woebegone New York parking enforcer with a crush on Amanda (Jacinda Barrett), the cute grad student who lives across the hall. School for Scoundrels (Dimension) Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Heder, Jacinda Barrett, Ben Stiller. Directed by Todd Phillips.

Four Christmases *** 1/2 ( 3 1/2 Stars) $16.8 million $69.4 million 2 1/2 weeks Rated: PG-13 Running time: 82 minutes What it's about: After years of leaving the country for Christmas, a couple are forced to spend the holiday with their families. : Our take: Vince Vaughn, as one-half of the trapped couple, is his usual boarish self, but Reese Witherspoon (above) explores her lighter side to great effect. as the other half. Twilight ** ( 2 STARS) $13 million $138.4 million 3 weeks Rated: PG-13 Running time: 121 minutes What it's about: Good-guy vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, above)

Australia What it's about : With a can-do Aussie spirit, English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman, above) and her right-hand man and lover, the Drover, end up rescuing and running the ranch her murdered husband left her. Rated: PG-13 The scoop : Despite the fresh environments, this film is made up of bits and pieces of other movies, including The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and, yes, Cattle Queen of Montana; and by the...

As he showed in his short-lived comedy-sketch TV series, Ben Stiller has a gift for crafting show-biz lampoons that explode the boundaries between burlesque and satire, low and high culture, clowning and parody. One of the funniest things ever put on television was the skit he called "Woody Allen's Bride of Frankenstein," a take-off on Husbands and Wives with a cast of characters that included Frankenstein's monster and the Mummy. It slashed through Allen's psychodrama with a simple, brilliant stroke: Allen's characters often acted monstrously; in Stiller's parody, they were monsters.

The new Ben Stiller vehicle The Heartbreak Kid has a killer "high concept" - a husband falls in love with another woman while still on his honeymoon. It's worked twice before, brilliantly, both in its original form as a brisk, sardonic Bruce Jay Friedman short story (called "A Change of Plan") and as an emotionally booby-trapped Elaine May movie, also called The Heartbreak Kid, from 1972. This new version, directed by the Farrelly brothers (There's Something About Mary) and adapted by a backcourt of screenwriters from the '72 screenplay (by Neil Simon)

WHAT YOU SAY There were some great movies nominated for this past season's Oscars, and the actors and actresses deserved well-intended accolades and praises. But as a diversion from severity, violence and language, I would prefer to purchase the DVD A Night at the Museum starring Ben Stiller, for an evening of fun and fantasy. I think Ben Stiller is a great actor, and he certainly proved his talent in this movie. Freda Garelick, Baltimore THE NEXT QUESTION Actor Terrence Howard stars in Pride, which opens today, as Jim Ellis, a Philadelphia swim coach who takes a team of nonswimmers and turns them into swimmers who win meets.

Jermaine Hash insists he doesn't mind being alone inside a closed museum all night. Neither does Allen Cummings, but he allows that, "You do hear sounds in here." "Here" is the Inner Harbor's Maryland Science Center. It's well past midnight on a recent weekday evening, and the two men are describing what it's like to hold one of Baltimore's eeriest jobs: night watchman in an empty, cavernous museum. After all, the night watchmen at New York's Museum of Natural History have to watch over bounding dinosaurs, talking statues, living-history dioramas and restless mummies.

WHAT YOU SAY There were some great movies nominated for this past season's Oscars, and the actors and actresses deserved well-intended accolades and praises. But as a diversion from severity, violence and language, I would prefer to purchase the DVD A Night at the Museum starring Ben Stiller, for an evening of fun and fantasy. I think Ben Stiller is a great actor, and he certainly proved his talent in this movie. Freda Garelick, Baltimore THE NEXT QUESTION Actor Terrence Howard stars in Pride, which opens today, as Jim Ellis, a Philadelphia swim coach who takes a team of nonswimmers and turns them into swimmers who win meets.

The new Ben Stiller vehicle The Heartbreak Kid has a killer "high concept" - a husband falls in love with another woman while still on his honeymoon. It's worked twice before, brilliantly, both in its original form as a brisk, sardonic Bruce Jay Friedman short story (called "A Change of Plan") and as an emotionally booby-trapped Elaine May movie, also called The Heartbreak Kid, from 1972. This new version, directed by the Farrelly brothers (There's Something About Mary) and adapted by a backcourt of screenwriters from the '72 screenplay (by Neil Simon)